'If I go into a Woolworths to do grocery shopping ... if there's somebody available to do my checkout, I'll go there, right, because I think they'll do it faster and quicker and I don't have to concentrate,' he said.

Mr Orrock said supermarkets, like Coles and Woolworths, had led the way on self-service checkouts, but that didn't mean other retailers ought to follow suit.

According to the Mail, a study from last year found that while 66 per cent of shoppers find self-service checkout machines easy to use, nearly one in 10 admitted to stealing items by deliberately avoiding to scan them.

Do you use self-serve checkout machines or do you prefer to use a shop assistant? Tell us in the comments section below...